In the music video for “Anti-Hero,” Taylor Swift sits in a 1970s-style suburban kitchen, lamenting in corduroy pants how she gets “older but … never wiser.” Her last two albums were rerecordings of old ones, and it seems she is stuck in the past. That would explain the clock faces and vintage decor peppering the promotional artwork for her highly anticipated new album, Midnights, on which “Anti-Hero” is the lead single.
If Midnights is about nostalgia, it’s not the warm and fuzzy kind. As the video continues, Swift meets an updated, more charismatic version of herself who exposes her faults and insecurities. What the “anti-hero” teaches us — that Swift is, in fact, “the problem” — is an intrusive thought. It’s also one of many epiphanies on Midnights. Swift introduced the album’s concept as “the stories of 13 sleepless nights scattered throughout my life,” yet her songwriting on “Anti-Hero” isn’t tired. These wee small hours show the artist at her most acerbic and authentic.
As for the actual sound, Swift and frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff have mostly settled on icy synthesizers and skeleton drum loops. Gone is the acoustic folk of 2020’s Folklore and Evermore, long forgotten the buoyant bubblegum of Lover. The color imagery on “Maroon” — “The mark thеy saw on my collarbone / The rust that grew bеtween telephones / The lips I used to call home,” etc. — calls back to Red, but here, the “real f***in’ legacy” is only a bad dream. For better or worse, Midnights is more about waking up from the past than sinking into it.
On the opener, a dusky R&B number with a falsetto hook, Swift just wants to stay “in that lavender haze,” an old-fashioned phrase for being in love that comes, she says, from a Mad Men episode. Really, she wants the feeling of love but rejects the outdated parts, dismissing the expectation of marriage as “1950s s***.” And on the blissfully poppy “Bejeweled,” Swift uses a night on the town to remind an ungrateful partner of her worth. In one of the brighter epiphanies on Midnights, she indeed “polish[es] up real nice.” The synths sparkle as Swift says she might not “remember” her lover.
The girlboss narratives are most powerful when Swift lends them a darker twist. If “Bejeweled” is a retelling of Folklore’s “Mirrorball” in which the people-pleasing entertainment object grows some teeth, then “Mastermind” represents a subversion of “Invisible String.” As a fitting closer for Midnights, Swift discovers she herself was the “mastermind” all along, that the string of fate was not invisible after all. These inversions aren’t just Easter eggs: As stand-alone songs, they make for some of the most memorable moments on Midnights.
Of course, not every song can be a gem. “Vigilante S***” evokes the cringe-core of 2017’s Reputation, and its dull instrumentals don’t provide any saving grace. The “question” that gives track seven its title isn’t all that hard-hitting. And “Snow on the Beach” squanders guest singer Lana Del Rey’s grandiose vocal talents by relegating her to the background. The cosmic production does not conceal that the best descriptor of the central image Swift can muster is “weird but f***in’ beautiful,” a far cry from her typical talent for imagery.
Still, give Swift some kudos, for there were safer directions in which she could have gone with this concept. “13 sleepless nights” could just as easily have been captured by the acoustic intimacy of her last two original albums. But it’s clear that Swift, even at the height of her fame and influence, intends to move forward. “Ask me why so many fade, but I’m still here,” she commands on “Karma,” another standout track that doubles as a message for her enemies. The question is valid, and the infectious, ebullient chorus is clearly part of the answer.
A succinct summary of Midnights is difficult to provide, not least because Swift has also treated fans to a “3am Edition,” which includes some memorable songs — “Bigger Than the Whole Sky” is a highlight — but also spoils an otherwise refreshingly concise project. Bonus tracks aside, newer fans of Folklore and Evermore will likely be disappointed by this colder sound, while tenured Swifties will eat up the self-referential lyricism and lore-crafting. At a listen, the album probably falls somewhere in the middle of her catalogue, with brilliant moments offset by skippable ones.
Yet the quality is perhaps less relevant than what the album represents as a pop music achievement. By the time Midnights was one day old, it was already the most streamed album in a single day in Spotify history — and that’s in a year that also saw releases from heavy hitters Beyonce and Kendrick Lamar. At this point, Taylor Swift is as much a cultural institution as she is a singer-songwriter. Even in those moments when she misses the mark, this midnight feels more like the dawn of a new day than the ending of an old one.
Jonathan Offenberg is a web producer for the Washington Examiner. You can read more on his blog, Off the Record.
